VILLAGE VOICE'S ANNUAL PAZZ AND JOP POLL

Here's the poll's home page. Read. Return.
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Personal observations:

1) I'm horribly out of step with the critical mainstream. Out of the top 50, I haven't even heard 39 of the LPs. I'm a lil' more with the masses on the singles though (25 out of 50).

2) I would have thought "Rock Your Body" would have scored higher. It
has that same kind of infectious pop appeal as Beyonce but maybe it
was a lil too bubblegum? Or maybe just too old?

3) What I really can't believe is that "Frontin" scored so low - that was massive! Every club I was in last year had hordes of drunk white women (the populist standard) asking for it.

4) Sean Paul's "Get Busy" probably deserves to be higher than where it is but I'm chalking that up to general dancehall apathy among the voters (myself included, I didn't put it on my list though in hindsight, I probably should have).

5) Diwali shoots - scores! Twice.

6) It's also worth noting - perhaps not surprisingly - that indie rap 12"s are nowhere to be found here unless you drop down to Lyrics Born's "Calling Out", tied for 119 or Kweli's "Get By" at 101. Notably absent: Atmosphere and Aesop. So much for emo-rap as the future of hip-hop...

7) Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by this either but urban (read: black) music scored 14 of the top 25 slots in the singles poll but only 4-5 in the top 25 album slots. Is this because people now accept hip-hop as pop but "serious" albums only come from white indie rockers? Oh, I guess that'd be, "yes."

HOT COMMENTS (call me self-aggrandizing but these are my favorite part of P&J, reading over people's laser-targeted comments about pop music. Some of it is most definitely wankery but occassionally you get some brilliantly clever and intelligent observations in the mix.)

• OutKast don't hate the game, they just change the fucking rules. All
  you critics (I mean, all you funky fresh colleagues) who hated on
  this one just because, you know, you knew your voice would be that
  much louder to hate on a record this butters: Get a striped shirt and
  a whistle and blow.-SACHA JENKINS
  
  
• "Beware of the Boys" brought back memories of listening to Hot 97
  with my little brother in the car , protesting when my dad tried to
  turn off the radio in favor of his Indian classical music tapes. Dad
  could tolerate hip-hop way more than rock, which he thought was
  tuneless garbage.-GEETA DAYAL
  
  
• I'd take a sip of Kelis's milk-shake over a lick of Beyonce's jelly any day.-AMY PHILLIPS
  
  
• I swear when Snoop and Pharrell's "Beautiful" came out, crime dropped
  to an all-time low in South Central L.A. Gangstas were seen all over
  town crooning like bitches. They dropped their gats and bought floral
  arrangements for their 'hos. Yeah boiiii.-HEIDI SIEGMUND CUDA
  
  
• The thing about Andre 3000 is that he is profoundly black. This is
  not a "positive" blackness?Dead Prez raising a fist, Talib Kweli
  getting by. This is a personal and accidental black-ness. This is
  describing the entire experience?the way we walk on sunny days when
  it's raining inside?when you meant to only write a song. This is "Her
  from the city, so her got to be witty." This is an attempt at
  new-world multiculturalism?"now all Beyonces and Lucy Lius" betrayed
  by Southern slurring of that last syllable.-TA-NEHISI COATES
  
  
• I wish Big Boi and Andre 3000 were gay, and a couple, and advocates
  for gay marriage.-SMITH GALTNEY
  
  
• Be r*al! If somebody else stepped up with the beat from Cee-Lo's
  "I'll Be Around" or Missy's "Wake Up" or Timbaland and Magoo's own
  "Indian Flute," you'd have a heart attack and start pitching features.-SASHA FRERE-JONES
  
  
• Without a doubt, the debut of the year was by the U.K.'s Led
  Zeppelin. I know, everyone says they're just ripping off the White
  Stripes and Queens of the Stone Age, but they are so much more than
  that. Who else would have the guts to debut with a three-disc live
  set? Their deadpan take on every conceivable '70s rock
  excess?including, hilariously, the de rigueur 20-minute drum
  solo?works as well as it does because these guys can actually play!-SCOTT SEWARD
  
  
• Dear Postal Service: "Singing" over "beats"? That's called "r&b,"
  crackers. Better withdraw that patent application.-JON CARAMANICA
  
  
• So now the young Black man, having waxed so eloquently about guns,
  blunts, and be-a-tches, will speak of love. Of biblical love and
  filial love, undesirable love and unrequited love, terrifying love
  and heavenly love, of Hottentot Madonna love and other hookerlicious
  oxymoronic forms of love, of goddess cult love, of love for hearth
  and home and of love cast out into the wilderness. Andre 3000 y'all.-GREG TATE
  
  
• Did hip-hop really need the validation of the Democratic field during
  the November debate? Wesley Clark weighing in on OutKast? Dennis
  Kucinich's theme rap? Somewhere down there, Robert Moses is saying,
  "For this I destroyed the South Bronx?"-HUA HSU
  
  
• I'm biding time till Apple releases an "iRecord Store Clerk"who can
  scowl at me and ridicule my every purchase. Then I'm on board.-JERRY DANNEMILLER
  
  
• In homage to Jay-Z, I'd like to say: Thank you God my personal
  savior, whether you are man woman or simply energy, the omniscient
  ether making me the best list-maker on earth, and forcing all those
  other unfortunate suckas to step up their game once I am gone. You
  are truly divine.-JULIANNE SHEPHERD

NOT SO HOT COMMENTS I'm not trying to hate but some of these comments so overstate their point, I couldn't help but draw attention to them)

• There should be a bumper sticker on the back of the OutKast company
  dune buggy that reads, "Money Talks But Bullshit Walks All The Way To
  The Bank To Count The Loot That Tales Of Rollerskates And Lollipops
  Showered Upon Us In Our Attempts To Create A Hybrid That While Never
  Devoid Of Funk And Certainly In Keeping With A Long Tradition Of
  Trickster Mischief Makers Nonetheless Adds A 21st-Century
  Diamond-Studded Wristwatch Hard Gleam To The Eye Of The Tiger That We
  Most Assuredly Have By The Tail! We Deserve Every Penny Because We
  Work Harder Than Anybody To Perfect Our Imperfections And Somehow We
  Still Manage To Rock The Bells Occasionally Beep Beep Ya Ass!"-SCOTT SEWARD
  (ed: whoa! slow down dude! de-caff f'real!)
  
  
• All summer I felt stalked by "In Da Club." It poured out of speakers
  in every bodega, SUV, boom box, and clothing store I walked past.
  When I came out of the subway in Brooklyn it greeted me on DeKalb
  Avenue, sending me home on the flow of a groove that was infectious,
  sinister, and funky. It'll take the Neptunes another 10 years to
  smell the fumes on Dr. Dre's Caddy.-NELSON GEORGE
  (ed: "In Da Club" was crazy hot but let's not overstate it. The Neptunes are racking up new classics so fast they've already lapped themselves. Dre will do fine but dude's not God.)
  
  
• Justin Timberlake's falsetto singlehandedly ushered me back into
  loving the Top 40.-HILLARY CHUTE
  (ed: this is one of those "wanna-be populist" statements that's profoundly anti-populist.)
  
  
• Jay-Z's retirement makes perfect sense: hip-hop has entered a post-MC
  phase. Rhymes are passe?. Turn on Hot 97: it's all about Diwali, the
  new Jus' Blaze beat, the latest Neptunes songlet. The world's biggest
  MC is 50 Cent, a rapper who can't be bothered to open his mouth.
  Dancehall is blowing up, even though American listeners don't
  understand a single word.-JODY ROSEN
  (ed: there's a phenom going on here but for the love of God, "rhymes are passe"? I know it's phrased as a question, but even still. And just to point out - it's Just Blaze, not Jus'.)
  
  
• The most interesting figures in hip-hop for me over the past two
  years have been the Streets, Northern State, Dizzee Rascal, Bubba
  Sparxxx, and Slug. Not an African-American among them. Can it be that
  each artist's otherness relative to hip-hop proper is bringing new
  styles, new impulses, and new concerns to a genre that's 25 years old?-CHRIS HERRINGTON
  (ed: I'm baffled as to how anyone can only like the Streets, Northern State, Dizzee, Bubba and Slug at the expense of other interesting hip-hop figures who actually happen to be African American...Andre 3000 anyone? Missy? Lil Jon? Timbaland? Fanny Pack? Mr. Lif? My point clear yet? Herrington is from Memphis but for a moment, I thought maybe he lived in Williamsburg.)
  
  
• The problem is, being a pop star these days often means being a star
  of pop culture, not pop music.-NATE PATRIN
  (ed: see above about anti-populism masquerading as populism)

SO NOT HOT QUOTES(I swear to god I'm not trying to pick on Rob Sheffield but I just couldn't NOT highlight these two pearls)

• I love "Hey Ya!" But who even pretended not to? It's the most
  accessible hip-hop hit since Kris Kross's "Jump." It's also a hopeful
  sign that people still crave weirdness from pop music even in this
  most conformist of times.-ROB SHEFFIELD
  (ed: Has dude not been to a club or listened to the radio since the days of Cross Colours, Aaron Hall and the first Bush administration? Kris Kross? I'm aghast.)
  
  
• Who's the leader in da club that's made for you and me? F-I-F T-Y-C
  E-N-motherfuckin-T!-ROB SHEFFIELD
  (ed: WASP please!)